


The Party

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Bright Young Things, Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley's Eighty Year Depression Nap, Everyone Is Gay, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship, also Agatha is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 08:51:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19331218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Aziraphale is struggling with his emotions, so when the Young Person he has been trying to look out for invites him to a party, he thinks the distraction might do him good.





	The Party

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the GO/BYT crossover stuff I've played with has played with the whole actor allusion thing, BUT, when I wrote it, it wasn't properly about TV!Crowley-and-Aziraphale, as it still went from book canon.
> 
> This time around, I'm really playing with what the changed timeline of Crowley's nap means for a potential crossover with the TV 'verse.

    “Mother knows best.” Miles tuts at him, and Aziraphale raises an eyebrow.

 

    “You, my dear, are incredibly young to be _my_ mother.” He regards him over the rims of his glasses. They are an affectation, but he rather likes them-- putting them on makes him feel more focused on what he’s doing, even if he doesn’t need them.

 

    “Well, even so. You ought to come to a party! You sit here all alone, night after night, listening to the most dreadful opera and _weeping_.”

 

    “I do not _weep_.” He frowns, but considers the invitation. “I shan’t go if there are drugs.”

 

    “No, it shall be dreadfully dull, I promise. The food will be all right, though.”

 

    “That means you as well.”

 

    Miles makes a series of highly offended noises, before nodding. “For love of you, even though it shall be an appalling affair to get through without, I shall abstain.”

 

    “All right, I’ll come.” He says, smiling when Miles claps his hands together gleefully.

 

    He could get out more, he knows. He’s spent the last near-to-seventy years holed up in his shop more often than not… Oh, he’s done things, yes. He learned the gavotte, taken to magic, gone shopping and out dining, but…

 

    But every passing fancy leads him right back to his armchair and his victrola and his lonely cups of cocoa, glasses of wine he could have sworn once tasted sweeter… and when the turn of the century came and went, he found he had little interest in going out anymore. His feet took him to all the same places, and yet…

 

    What was he to have done?

 

    What was he ever to have done differently?

 

    How long will it feel this way? He should distract himself more, he knows, and yet the idea aches him, wearies him. He likes being around people but he’s always been terrible at connecting with them properly. He says or does the wrong thing and they think him strange, and he can’t explain what he is…

 

    But Miles, well, he’s a bit odd himself, Aziraphale supposes, for he never seems bothered. And it’s nice of him to invite…

 

\---/-/---

 

    He has a nice tuxedo, in a dove grey, and it hasn’t gotten out much in a while. Too formal for the club, and fancy dinners have turned to ash in his mouth since…

 

    He went to the opera once, and felt so abysmal and so unwell that he left during intermission and laid down on his sofa for a full two hours, doing no work at all, his emotions coursing through him.

 

    And now at seventy years or so, it feels as it felt at ten. It’s not as if he hasn’t gone seventy years without seeing Crowley before, but this was different.

 

    He’d only wanted…

 

    He had _cared_ about him. He’d learned by then not to say as much plainly, nor praise his good points. But what Crowley asked of him was _dangerous_. He couldn’t be the reason for-- for anything happening to the only friend he’s really had since… since the beginning. He had tried to make his feelings on the subject clear, and Crowley…

 

    And it _hurt_.

 

    It hurts still.

 

    It hurts to scan for him and never see him. Places where they had shared a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, the park… He finds himself standing where he’d stood, and trying to think if there was anything he could have done differently. But he could never have agreed to it.

 

    He’s not going to do that tonight. He’s going to go to this party that Miles has invited him to attend, and watch him and his young friends drink and dance, and partake of any food there might be to be had. He’s going to be happy to see them happy-- he hopes they will be happy, even if Miles had said it would be a bore-- and it will be a lovely evening.

 

    It is, for a bit. At least, until poor Agatha falls ill-- so one of Miles’ other friends tells him, and Miles had swept her off to take care of her in some quiet room before he could come back to the party, and that is a shame, but the canapes are very nice and Aziraphale doesn’t know anyone else, so he settles for standing along the wall with a nibble and waiting for Miles to return, that he might ask after Agatha, and perhaps he will repair to whatever quiet room she’s in and see what he can do. He knows dealing with a partygoer’s migraine or stomach upset would be classed as a frivolous miracle, but… well.

 

    He sees red hair over by the champagne. A dark suit, the height, the breadth of shoulder, he slips through the crowd to reach him, forgets to _breathe_.

 

    “Oh, I didn’t know you would be _here_! Oh, but it’s been so _long_ , I--” His greeting dies on his lips as a man who is not Crowley turns to face him, his eyes wide.

 

    His very human, very brown eyes. Perfectly nice, all warm and dark and friendly and quite surprised, but not Crowley’s eyes.

 

    “Oh. Terribly sorry.” Aziraphale deflates.

 

    He’s young, too young to be Crowley, hair a shade too light. He’s got a moustache.

 

    “That’s all right.” He says, with an awkward sort of smile.

 

    “From across the room, I-- I took you for an old friend. But of course you’re… rather young to be an old friend. We-- we haven’t seen each other in years, and… from a distance, you-- Terribly sorry.”

 

    “Please, it’s all right. Er-- well, you may as well help yourself to the champagne. That’s what I’m doing. I’m never any good at these big gatherings. I’m never sure how I got invited to begin with.” He laughs, though it’s strained.

 

    “Oh, I am never invited at all, except this once, by a young friend who fears I should get out more.” Aziraphale picks up a glass of champagne, toying with the stem nervously. Miles sweeps up to them before he is forced to try talking about the weather, and he breathes a sigh of relief. “Miles, dear, how is Agatha?”

 

    “She shall be right as rain by tomorrow, I expect, and I am to report back to her with a healthful glass of champagne.” He says, and he notices the other gentleman, and smiles at him. “It’s the bubbles, you know. Like a bicarbonate of soda.”

 

    “Why not fetch her an actual bicarbonate of soda?”

 

    “When there’s _champagne_? I should never be so beastly to the poor girl when she is already missing the party. Such as it is. I have sequestered her in the library to rest, where she is weeping into the cat.”

 

    “Oh.” The young man’s smile goes softly genuine. “What sort, er, what sort of a cat is it?”

 

    “A very understanding one. He shouldn’t be missing the party, he’s got his little tuxedo on. You know what I mean, those ones.”

 

    “Oh, yes. Er-- Sorry, I haven’t introduced myself at all, simply, simply dreadful of me. Ginger Littlejohn.”

 

    “Are you? Miles Maitland. Although, I have been called ‘ginger’ before myself.” He smiles archly, and Aziraphale would caution him to be a little more discreet, if he didn’t think he’d found a sort of a kindred spirit.

 

    “Have you been? You don’t, erm, look it.”

 

    “Then I shall have to try harder, darling.” He extends his hand. “Would you like to see the poor creature? Uncle Ezra shall be understanding if I steal your company. And you can see the cat as well!”

 

    “Er. Um. All right.”

 

    “If I carry a glass of champagne up to my friend, and you carry one glass for you, and one glass for me…” Miles suggests, all playfulness. “I shall have one hand free to steady myself upon your strong arm.”

 

    “Do you think it likely to be necessary?”

 

    “Oh, yes. I am simply _reeling_. And the only thing for it is to have another drink to steady myself. But how do you know Uncle Ezra? He isn’t actually, I don’t think, but we look it, don’t we? Are you one of his customers? Or do you go to the same club, or…?”

 

    “Oh, no-- no, we were just… both holding up the wall. Getting a drink.”

 

    “I mistook him for someone else, at a distance.” Aziraphale admits. “But I’ll come up briefly to check on Agatha. I ought to look in on her before I go.”

 

    “Go? So soon?”

 

    “It was kind of you to ask me, but I really haven’t got a party in me tonight.”

 

    “Oh, goodness, not at this party you wouldn’t. It’s so dull, that we might as well all sit up in the library and have as much fun as anyone down here.” Miles takes Ginger’s arm once the man has two full glasses in hand, and he leads them up to the quiet library.

 

    Agatha is indeed lying on the sofa in a state, and holding onto a very patient and very large cat, though it leaps free of her when she pushes herself up to look blearily at Miles.

 

    “Is that my champagne, darling?”

 

    “Yes, darling.” He hands it to her and kisses her cheek. “Agatha, look at this _delightful_ specimen I’ve found downstairs.”

 

    Ginger looks rather confused to be described as such, but his protest is pure embarrassment, and not disgust or dismay.

 

    “Is he? Oh, I wouldn’t know anything about _that_.” She says, and rolls her eyes, and sips at her champagne. She also permits Aziraphale to place a hand over her brow, and to improve her just enough-- there may be a memo, but… sometimes it’s worth a sternly worded memo.

 

    Miles takes one of the other glasses of champagne from Ginger and sits by Agatha, freeing Ginger up to pet the cat as it travels between his ankles and Aziraphale’s in search of attention.

 

    “Well, I would. How are you feeling?”

 

    “Practically ready to rejoin the fray, actually. This champagne is a marvel.”

 

    “I told you.” Miles says, turning to Aziraphale. “I told you it was healthful. _Reinvigorating_. But oh, don’t, it’s such a dull party. I wish I’d thought to have a pack of cards on me, we could stay up here and play a game, there’s even a bar in the corner, we wouldn’t have to go down for anything. Dull old people and dull old music.”

 

    “Oh, I have, actually.” Ginger abandons petting the cat, in order to fish a deck from his pocket. “As, as it happens, I have, on me. I have a deck.”

 

    “How _fortuitous_!”

 

    Being in the library, Aziraphale decides, there’s really no reason he ought to leave early… when he might as easily hide away here in the corner with a book while Miles and friends play cards…

 

    He buries himself in a novel, at the other end of the room, and listens to the intermittent laughter from the sofa, cat at home on his lap and purring… it’s as nice a time as he’d have had anywhere.

 

    He’s a sweet boy, Miles… he can be so sweet, sometimes, so utterly selfless, and then of course he can be the most self-centered young man Aziraphale has ever met, but only for moments. Only little moments out of a life spent thinking of the happiness of others. He knows no moderation in it, only the pendulum of indulgence and service to others. Had the party been an exciting one, he might have left Agatha to sleep off her ailment in the dark. But he also might have taken her home and stayed up until dawn to fuss over her.

 

    Ginger looks at Miles with surprise, it seems, every time Aziraphale glances up to them. Surprise, confusion, and a wary softness that looks t home on his face. He looks as if he is discovering a new species in him. As if he is delighted to be doing so.

 

    Aziraphale thinks suddenly of standing on a wall, of a moment of marveling appraisal aimed his way. He goes back to his book.

 

    “-- tragic love affair--” Miles’ voice rises with the promise of some juicy story, over the soft din of the card game. “Which I have _never_ been given full account of, but let me tell you what I do know, which is to say, that there was this _terribly_ handsome man--”

 

    “Oh, did you meet him?” Agatha leans in towards him.

 

    “No. But I know he was terribly handsome, it is all part of the tragedy.”

 

    “How do you know he was handsome?” Ginger asks, in that soft and nervous laugh.

 

    “ _Terribly_ so, do follow me, but I know. It is possible he was wealthy, as well, but he was most _certainly_ the most terribly handsome man I never met. Now-- oh, are we dealing? I still need two cards, I think. Ginger, how many am I meant to be holding right this very moment? I seem to have less than you both.”

 

    He might have left, were the cat not sitting with him, but as it stands, Aziraphale thinks he may well stay a bit longer...


End file.
